In Denial Read online

  ‘SOCO is on -’

  ‘SOCO?’

  ‘Scenes of Crime. We must sanitize the area so that nothing is disturbed. It will take -’

  ‘Yes, I know, hours.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Harrison, hours.’ She was watching him very closely, her face almost expressionless.

  ‘Clues, they’ll want to look for clues. I’ve seen what they do. Does this mean I can’t be with them?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid that is out of the question.’

  ‘Not even go into the house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But it’s …’

  ‘But it’s what, sir?’

  ‘Nothing … I understand.’

  * * *

  ‘Good evenin’, sir,’ the man behind the bar said, his face unsmiling, a slight frown on his forehead. ‘What would ye be likin’?’

  Adam looked around him.

  There were eight or nine others in the bar. Four middle-aged men were playing cards over by the spitting log fire - all of whom were now eyeing him inquisitively; a young couple was tucked over in the corner and three other men sat on stools at the bar itself, their eyes focussed on him. Adam nodded at the men before turning back to the barman.

  ‘Er, yes, good evening. I was wondering if you had a room for the night, maybe two or three nights.’

  ‘A room?’ The man looked at his watch. ‘Bit late for a room, it’s gone eight.’

  ‘Oh, right, bit late, right, I’d better …’

  ‘I s’pose I could go an’ ask Doris. She won’t be likin’ it, mind.’

  ‘Then perhaps it would be best …’ Adam watched the barman go out through the door at the back of the bar. He nodded once again at the men sitting to his left, their expressions now distinctly hostile. The card game over by the log fire had resumed. The couple in the corner were kissing.

  ‘It’s a room you’re wanting,’ said the matronly woman who suddenly appeared in the bar, looking as though she had materialised from the 1940s.

  ‘Eh, yes, if that’s …’

  ‘It’s after eight,’ she told him.

  ‘Yes, your … the barman said the same thing. If it’s too difficult …’

  ‘I suppose it’s not too far after eight,’ the woman said without a hint of a smile. ‘English, are you?’ Whereas the barman had a broad Scottish accent, Doris’s was only slight.

  ‘Yes, does that -’

  ‘Most tourists go to The Manor. Don’t get many down this end.’ Adam wanted to ask if tourists didn’t fill the rooms then who did.

  ‘If it’s …’

  ‘Is it a single you’ll be wanting or a double?’

  ‘A double would be nice but a single will do.’

  ‘On your own then?’

  ‘Yes, I’m on my own.’

  ‘Overlooking the loch is forty-five pounds, not overlooking the loch forty pounds. Although I have to add that at this time of year the word overlooking is used a wee bit loosely. Which would you prefer?’

  ‘The loch, please. Overlooking the loch would be perfect.’

  ‘The loch, is it? Well, you’d better come with me. To overlook the loch we have to go to the top.’

  The woman selected a key from behind the bar and disappeared through the door the barman was now propping open. In response to Adam’s raised eyebrows, he pointed to the door on the other side of the bar.

  * * *

  ‘What time did you get home, sir?’ Sergeant Brown asked him from the other side of the table.

  Adam had gone willingly to the police station, mainly because he had nowhere else to go. Even in his bewildered state, he realised the sooner he answered their questions, the sooner they would leave him alone. Why did he want to be left alone? How do you tell your mother-in-law and father-in-law that their only daughter and only grandchildren had been murdered - and not just murdered?

  The shock could quite easily kill Christina and Joseph. Neither were at their best any more. Thank God his own parents had died long ago. At least they had been saved the horror.

  ‘Just after seven. I always get in on a Friday at just after seven,’ Adam replied in a monotone.

  Detective Constable John Tilsey was leaning back in the other chair. ‘And your wife an’ kids were dead when you got home?’ he asked, a slight sneer on his face. He was even more fresh-faced than Adam had first realised.

  Sergeant Brown gave her junior an exasperated look. ‘What DC Tilsey means, sir,’ she said turning back to Adam, ‘is …’

  ‘I know what he means,’ Adam told her. ‘Yes, as you found them I found them.’ He wondered when he was going to break.

  It had to come.

  The full realisation of what had happened would hit him shortly and when it did, God knows what he would do.

  ‘You said you commute between Ashbourne and London on a weekly basis.’

  ‘Yes, I leave late on a Sunday evening and then get back -’

  ‘At just after seven on a Friday,’ DC Tilsey said, finishing Adam’s sentence for him.

  DS Brown pushed back her chair. ‘Would you excuse us for a moment please, sir?’ She signaled with her eyes to DC Tilsey and they both left the interview room.

  * * *

  ‘It’s the best room I’ve got,’ Doris said as she drew the curtains.

  Adam looked around breathlessly. It had been quite a climb.

  He had to admit that it wasn’t quite what he’d expected. The bed was a four-poster and the pure white quilt and pillows looked pristine against the dark oak bed-frame. In contrast, the deep pile wall-to-wall carpet was pink, well worn but clean. The curtains Doris had just drawn were also pink, as were the two high backed chairs either side of the bay window, although a slightly darker shade. On the other side of the bed was a simple writing table and chair, next to which there was a door, which Adam assumed led to the en-suite bathroom. On the bed lay two pink bath towels and two white hand towels, and on the pillows chocolates wrapped in silver paper.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ he told his hostess.

  Doris picked up two of the towels. ‘You’ll not be wanting these.’

  ‘No, no, thank you.’

  ‘I’ll be leaving you then.’ She stopped at the door. ‘Two or three nights, you say?’

  ‘Yes, if that’s …’

  She nodded and then seemed to suddenly mellow. ‘Have you come far?’

  ‘Derbyshire. Ashbourne, in Derbyshire.’

  ‘And what brings you …. no, that’s none of me business. Have you had something ta eat?’

  ‘Er, no, I was hoping ...’

  ‘Were you now?’ Doris smiled. ‘There’ll be fish and chips in the snug for you in thirty minutes.’

  ‘Doris, I mean Mrs …’

  ‘Doris will do.’

  Adam held out his hand. ‘I’m Adam Harrison.’

  * * *

  ‘All right,’ DS Brown said, once they had reconvened.

  DC Tilsey was still at the table but he was looking suitably chastened.

  ‘Mr Harrison, may I reiterate what I perhaps only implied earlier? We are extremely grateful that you are being so co-operative - under the circumstances. Neither DC Tilsey nor I can even start to imagine how you must be feeling.’ DC Tilsey brushed some imaginary fluff from his trousers. ‘Helping us now, though, will hopefully mean that we’ll catch the person or persons who did this to your family that much more quickly.’

  Adam leant forward, his hands clasped on the table. ‘The reason I’m here is because if I were not I have no idea where I would be or what I would be doing. While I’m here … I am using you to protect me from myself. I fully understand that my wife and my two children have been murdered and, yes, I’ll do anything I can to help you catch their killers, but … but although I understand what has happened, the realisation of what has happened has yet to sink in. And when it does, I’m afraid you will have to excuse me.’

  DS Brown put her hands on the table and for a moment Adam thought she was going to touch his hand. ‘Mr Harr
ison, as you are here to help us we are also here to help you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  There were a few moments' silence before DS Brown asked: ‘Did you by any chance notice if anything was missing?’

  Adam lifted his head. ‘I couldn’t tell you whether the four walls were still there let alone anything else. No, I’m sorry, I’ve no idea what, if anything, might be missing. And if the motive was burglary, I really couldn’t care less.’

  ‘No, of course not. I understand.’

  ‘Mr Harrison,’ said DC Tilsey. ‘May I ask when you last spoke to your wife?’

  Adam didn’t have to give his answer any thought. It had been the same as all previous Thursday evening phone calls. Lucinda would spend ten minutes telling him how her day had been. He would then, in less than a minute, reciprocate and afterwards they would say, ‘I love you’ before ringing off. The routine did not take away what such calls meant to them, it was just that on a Thursday evening they were less than twenty-four hours away from seeing each other again.

  ‘Thursday,’ Adam told him. ‘Thursday at just after eleven o’clock. I always phone her every evening. It was …’

  ‘May I ask what she said?’

  ‘It is of no significance. I -’

  ‘But could you tell me anyway.’

  ‘No, that’s all right, Mr Harrison,’ DS Brown said, interrupting. ‘What DC Tilsey is trying to establish is whether anything was said by your wife that was out of the ordinary, was her voice the same as usual, did she …?’

  Adam shook his head. ‘There was nothing. If there had been anything I would have told you already.’

  ‘Of course. So you didn’t speak to her today at any time?’

  ‘No, we never spoke on a Friday, not before I got home. It was part of the game …’

  ‘This game, sir?’ DC Tilsey said. ‘What exactly was that?’

  Adam shook his head, DC Tilsey’s use of the past tense not lost on him. ‘Don’t even go there,’ he said, ‘it was nothing.’

  ‘It must have been …’

  ‘We understand,’ DS Brown said, shooting a glance sideways. ‘Has your house been burgled before, sir?’

  ‘No, there’s been nothing like that.’

  ‘When did you and your wife last have a row, sir?’ It was DC Tilsey again.

  ‘Last week,’ Adam replied straightaway. ‘It was about Charlotte as usual. You see she -’ He stopped. ‘May I ask you a question?’

  ‘Of course,’ DS Brown replied.

  ‘If you’re here trying to find out if I may have had reason to kill my wife and children -’ He stopped again, suddenly gasping as he held his hand to his head. ‘Who is with my wife and children?’ He saw Charlotte’s young thirteen-year old face staring blankly up at him, her pale lips slightly parted. He saw the pool of dried blood on her bedclothes. He saw her left leg and left arm hanging over the side of the bed, he saw …

  Chapter Three

  The fish and chips were good.

  The chips were crisp, exactly the way he liked them, and the fish had been only lightly battered and then fried to a golden brown. He wasn’t too sure about the baked beans but it was the thought that mattered.

  The snug was very aptly named. There was a small bar and three tables, each being able to seat a maximum of four people.

  ‘We use this for breakfast at the moment when we have guests,’ Doris told him as she put the plate on the table. ‘The restaurant and then the main bar are being refurbished. Not much call for evening meals this time o’ year.’ She put salt, pepper, vinegar and tomato sauce on the table and left him in peace. The pint of lager he’d ordered was poured in the main bar.

  The curtain covering the small window in the corner looked as though it could do with dry-cleaning, and the carpet was stained, but the room was warm, the food good, and he was on his own.

  All of which suited him.

  When he set off that morning he had planned to reach Loch Lomond and Luss by six in the evening. After joining the M6 at Holmes Chapel and driving north for a while, he had begun to give his destination some more thought. Loch Lomond had always had a mutual attraction.

  As they had sat round the meal table discussing holidays he could hear Charlotte say: ‘Don’t forget we’re going to Loch Lomond, Daddy.’

  ‘We’ll go.’

  ‘But when?’

  ‘What’s this fascination with Loch Lomond anyway?’

  ‘It’s somewhere we all want to go but we’ve never been.’

  ‘We will.’

  ‘When though?’

  ‘One day.’

  That one day never happened.

  As he pulled back the bedroom curtain before going down to the snug to eat, and looked into the darkness, he still didn’t understand the fascination they’d had with the loch because his question was not answered. Now his question would never be answered. Was that why he was here? Had he been drawn to Loch Lomond because they had always said that one day they would go?

  Was it where he would try to join them?

  Wherever they were.

  * * *

  He understood why the police suspected him.

  He understood why they had to question him, query his every move, check meticulously on the details he provided.

  He understood why it took three days.

  Why they would not let him back into his own house.

  Even why he had to give them a list so that they could collect what he needed from the house.

  And he understood why the list and then each item on it was deeply scrutinised before anything was released to him.

  He understood all of that.

  What he did not understand was why it had all been necessary in the first place. He did not hold any malice towards the police because they were only doing their job. After all, they were investigating the murder of three people: his wife, son and daughter. How often had he read in the paper about entire families being wiped out by a disturbed parent, usually the father? Wives stabbed or shot, children smothered; it happened all too frequently.

  He understood, but being a suspect had only added to the delay. He didn’t really want to know who had taken his family from him. Knowing wouldn’t bring them back. He didn’t want to see the man who had slit his wife’s, his son’s and his daughter’s throats.

  At one stage he hoped the man - he always thought the murderer had to have been a man - would never be caught.

  He had lost faith in the justice system many years earlier. He had seen too many people he would have had put down, giving two fingers to society.

  When the police eventually told him he could go home, he didn’t know how he felt. He didn’t want to go home because they would not be there. Even when he’d found them they had been there but now they were not. He asked about the funerals and was told maybe in a week’s time. How could he arrange their funerals on a maybe? There was so much to do, so much to organise, so many people to tell, to invite, to …

  * * *

  It was awful.

  He didn’t have to say he never wanted to go through that again because he could never and would never go through it again. Everybody was so understanding, sympathetic, caring; everybody was shocked by the horror which had caused three young people to be cremated, their bodies never to grace this earth again. In turn, Adam did all he could for Lucinda’s mother and father, for Charlotte and Timothy’s grandparents, but they had aged before his very eyes as he no doubt had aged in others’ eyes.

  There were no wills, no last wishes.

  How could a thirteen year-old girl and a fourteen-year old boy have last wishes? They had their lives ahead of them, they had their futures to think about. And Lucinda …

  Poor, poor Lucinda.

  Wherever she was, she would be blaming herself; she would feel totally responsible. Even when Charlotte or Timothy fell off their bikes, scuffed their knees or cut a finger, had a headache or a cold, Lucinda always felt responsible.

  Adam could not
have asked for a better wife, or the children for a better mother. She was - had been - the epitome of a living angel, always seeing good in people before she saw the bad, always preaching the positive before the negative, always acknowledging the advantages rather than the disadvantages of doing something.

  Yes, Lucinda had been an angel.

  * * *

  ‘Have you finished, Mr Harrison?’

  Adam had not heard Doris come back into the snug. He looked up. ‘Yes, yes I’ve finished, thank you. That was delicious.’

  Rather than pick up his plate and leave him alone once again, Doris pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down. ‘We had somebody like you in here ‘bout five years ago,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Somebody like me?’ Adam repeated automatically, but not really caring what Doris meant. She had interrupted his thoughts which were so precious.

  ‘Oh, yes, just like you. He was like a lost soul as well.’

  ‘A lost soul? You make me sound like some sort of itinerant ghost.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you are?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Doris, but you’ve lost me. I’m tired after a long drive. That was a delicious meal but now I just want to go to bed.’

  Doris picked up the empty plate but did not stand up. ‘I asked earlier why you were here, but then said it was none of my business. It is still none of my business but if you are in need of somebody to listen, somebody to perhaps share whatever is troubling you, then …’

  ‘You are very kind, Doris, but … but it’s too late for all of that.’

  ‘It’s never too late.’

  ‘I can assure you, Doris, for me it is too late.’

  Doris put the plate back on the table. ‘Mr Harrison, I’ve been running this place for more years than I care to remember. I have seen thousands of people come and go, most of them I wouldn’t recognise if I saw them again. They come, they stay and sometimes they eat but then they go, usually after paying, but not always.’ She chuckled. ‘They’re my livelihood. On occasions, and such occasions are becoming more and more rare, somebody stays and I think they are special. They are different. Do you want to know what Sid said to me when he came to get me out of the parlour after you’d asked for a room?’